Being ‘paid to breastfeed’ - your thoughts?

[SarahMumsnet]

The BBC's reporting this morning that new mothers living in some areas of Derbyshire and south Yorkshire are to be given vouchers for shops including Matalan, Mothercare and John Lewis if they breastfeed their babies. These will be given out as part of a study by the University of Sheffield, aimed at discovering whether “financial incentives” will increase the uptake of breastfeeding in parts of the country where rates are low; mothers will receive vouchers worth up to £120 if they breastfeed until six weeks, and another £80-worth if they continue to the six-month mark.

The scheme, according the senior researcher on the project, is intended "as a way of acknowledging both the value of breastfeeding to babies, mothers and society, and the effort involved in breastfeeding. Offering financial incentives ... might increase the numbers of babies being breastfed, and complement on-going support for breastfeeding provided by the NHS, local authorities and charities."

We've been asked by the beeb what Mumsnetters make of the idea; what's your reaction?

Why is it that the healthcare profession treat men and women so differently? Men are treated like grown adults who can make their own decisions about cancer screening etc whereas women are treated like toddlers who have to be told what's good for them (cf letters instructing women to get smears), policed (cf constant questions about contraception when my dh has never not once been asked about it) and cajoled (cf this bucket of nonsense).

Don't agree with the scheme at all - the money should be put towards breastfeeding support on post natal wards and in the community. The whole "Breast is best" campaign left me wracked with guilt for the first few weeks of my DD's life when we were struggling with breastfeeding and offering a financial incentive will just add to this for many other mums who struggle in future.

Also, what about mixed feeding? I have done this from the start for DD's health & my sanity. It's the only reason I am still breastfeeding now - does this count? How the hell can they monitor who is eligible accurately?

Very true Cailin - especially when women have babies they seem to fail to be treated as grown-ups which is possibly slightly ironic as having a baby is quite a grown-up thing to do!

Agree with lots of posters who say the money would be better spent on lactation consultants - whoever said that help is already out there, well not nationwide it isn't. I wasn't aware of a single feeding clinic within 1.5 hours of us when my DTs came home,and they'd been in hospital for 7 weeks so I was pretty clued up on most NHS facilities!
I ended up calling a La Leche helpline, but the difficulties I had (prem twins, reflux, mixed feed with meds, shields, pumping, low supply etc etc) were so specialist there was little they could effectively do over the phone.

There needs to be targeted promotion of breastfeeding to the women they want to get the message across to. So for example our Sure Start centre held a weekly baby group which was great, very bf friendly, and lots of women did feed there very comfortably. But we were all late 20s-early 30s first time mums. Sometimes younger mums would come along, but they never came for very many weeks - there seemed to be a real class and age divide, and it wasn't because of cliques or snotty comments from us older mums that I could see.

But I know that the centre also ran special sessions for young parents, and things that would benefit poorer families (job-hunting, english language classes etc). so I guess that would be the place to try and really make bf seem as normal as it did amongst our group.

Rediculous. I can't believe anyone in power thinks this is a good idea, they clearly aren't women if they think a few vouchers is going to make a difference. What a waste of money.

It seems to me that most women have made up their minds well before they are actually pregnant.

NaturalBaby, happily, this is just a small pilot scheme to test the idea, so no one has to decide on the basis of what a poster on a talkboard thinks it 'ridiculous' or not. If it makes no difference, it will be dropped.

Also, we can usefully look at research rather than guage 'what it seems to be' about when women make their decisions about infant feeding. Many do have a preference in pregnancy, it's true, but some do not. And when it comes to 'choice', most women say they want to breastfeed - but they end up not doing so, or not doing so for long. 9 out of 10 women who stop before their babies are 6 weeks old would have liked to continue - for whatever reason, their choice was removed.

It might be - or it might not be - the case that by incentivising breastfeeding, women who are from milieus where they are told it is 'weird' or 'disgusting' to breastfeed, and whose choices are affected by poor social support or even downright ostracism, may be enabled to put their choice into practice.

Yes, maybe more in schools would be good - but people seem so reluctant to talk with teens about anything to do with sex and relationships, babies or parenting - as though if they did it would encourage them all to have more sex and babies straight away.
Whereas in fact countries like the Netherlands with a good liberal education including about relationships have actually found there's been a reduction in teenage pregnancies.

I don't know what I think of it really. On the face of it it just seem wrong and unfair, a bit like paying fat people to loose weight while people of a health weight don't get 'presents' from the state for saving the NHS money.

But, the bottom line is whether it works or not, if it proves to work, then it works, so I think it's worth trying, however we feel morally.

Can I ask all the people who think it's a terrible idea if they will still be dead against it if it's shown to improve BF rates?

Bf rates in the Netherlands almost the same as here, though, Juggling.

How would they police this though? Make women do some sort of breast feeding test at six months? I suspect that some women may just lie, both for the money and because they feel guilty for not BFing

They should stick that money into timely and KNOWLEDGABLE breastfeeding support rather than some gimmick IMO.

I'd take the vouchers, spend them and bottle feed. No amount of money would have incentivised me to breast feed. And for the record, I am middle class, university educated and well off.

Well I'm surprised about that tiktok, but nevertheless they seem to have some recognised success with their sex ed and relationships education.
Perhaps they need to include more about breastfeeding too?

Kendodd even if it does work at marginally increasing bf rates (in which case, sure, keep it if it can be afforded) it does nothing to tackle the big issue of a lack of bf support and practical help at ward level and at home in the early days for new mums. Which so many posters on here, and every mum I know in RL, know to be a massive obstacle.

Putting more money into something that a lot of evidence shows to be effective (good mw support) is surely a more sensible thing to be doing than putting money (ok it's not as much as hiring lots of new clinical stuff) into an untested scheme, particularly in these times of reduced state funding.

If/when this scheme fails to be effective, I worry it might tar other bf support schemes with the same brush in bean counters' eyes.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16188818 for juggling.

I actually really disagree with the unbalanced and dishonest promotion of bf. I think they should be honest about it so that people can make their own informed choice. And I say that as someone bf their 8 month old.

And how do they plan to police this? Agree the money would be better spent on education and support. I think everyone knows that breast is best but for some people formula is the only option and seems to do a good enough job.

nosleep what do you mean? what did you wish you had been told?

I went into it completely blind ie hadn't had time to watch the DVD they gave me so no idea what the message is. I have learnt everything I know about bf from this board and other sources recommended here.

Thinking about it I guess that says it all!

That was interesting thanks tiktok though I think they selected the wrong conclusion - that is not the most interesting, informative or pertinent one.
I think conclusion could have included that over half of mothers in the Netherlands (just- 51%) are mainly BFing at one month, and a quarter are at 4 months.
People seem slightly too focused on this 6 month thing IMHO

I wish I'd been told that it may well be really painful (nipples and uterus). What makes me so cross is that when I told MWs that it hurt in the early days with DD1 I was told that it shouldn't if you're doing it properly. I'd then ask for guidance, and be told that what I was doing looked fine ergo it couldn't be hurting! Perhaps it was sore both times round because the latch was bad, or because the latch had initially been bad and led to bruising, but the suggestion that this isn't normal was so unhelpful.

The scheme is also going to put MWs and HVs in the very uncomfortable position of having to challenge/put pressure on new mothers. It's totally unfair to expect them to police this - it could really damage the relationship with their clients. Are they going to get training on how to deal with a distraught mum who has felt compelled by circumstance ( say an abusive partner) to give up bfing but who was perhaps relying on the vouchers? Or a mum who blatantly lies and makes the HV feel like a twat?

amothersplaceisinthewrong

why didn't you want to breastfeed?

Not to mention all the mws amd hvs out there who haven't a clue about bfing. They'll look like right dickheads saying "you can have money to breastfeed but no actual help."

It might work but it might be better if they spent the money on more advisers/lactation specialists in hospitals. The one where I had my twins was fantastic. I never found it painful. They brought in a milking machine and she taught me how to hand express and how to bf twins simultaneously in the rugby ball position.

so I never had the experience of finding it hard. if anything it was much easier than feeding two babies with bottles (which when I weaned them used to make me cry it was so difficult) and all the cleaning and sterilising.

but I can see that that was because I had excellent support very early on. If not I would have been clueless. other mums I have known get very little support before leaving hospital (I was in a for a week) and have to traipse along to the bf clinic with a small wailing baby in tow and sort it out when the clinic is on not at a time when it suits them, they are comfortable and relaxed etc. after already having suffered pain and anxiety.

I would never have managed that with twins and could not feed them in public anyway (twins in rugby ball position either means a very complicated arrangement of scarves or full topless nudity!)

that said if someone had offered me the vouchers I would not have said no